Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for coming in this morning and for his very comprehensive statement.

He mentioned the activity-based funding model. To reverse out of that, nobody is unaware that I fundamentally believe that one cannot quantify activity without geographical alignment of community health organisations and groups. Borders need to be found. I am putting on record for probably the 20th time that I do not see how it can work without that. I feel very strongly about clinicians in management roles. There cannot be an assumption that just because somebody has a medical background or is clinically trained that that person somehow has a deficit in management skills. Many GPs run practices where they manage a business as well as the clinical end. Pharmacists are able to manage a business along with our clinical roles, and to declare my interests there, I am a community pharmacist. I cannot understand what the difference is once one moves into the acute hospital set-up.

Deputy Durkan mentioned good health policies in schools. To follow on from that, I firmly believe that giving medical cards to children under six was a very good move. I believe in that because I have seen throughout my career that just because somebody is well-off does not necessarily mean that that person brings his or her children to the doctor, and just because somebody is badly-off does not mean that that person does not bring his or her child to the doctor. I fundamentally believe that every child in this country is equal and should have equal access to everything, good health care being the first of those things. If we foster a generation that is brought up in the health service and is being monitored by GPs in the primary care setting, we then raise a healthy generation that is within the system, a bit like the digital babies in Cork. We start off with good data for a particular generation. I can understand how some people would argue that it should be need over age group, but there is an argument there for a phased approach to bringing people into the system, so we are looking at defined age groups within our population.

Moving to a primary care model requires money and also a change in mindset, for people to get it out of their head that they have to attend the accident and emergency department with a broken toe. We have to, through the work in this committee, in the Joint Committee on Health and the Minister's own work, convince the public that primary care is not a second class place to go. They will get the optimum treatment. That is something that cannot be brought in overnight. It is something that we have to work to deliver to get public buy-in to it.